on that play. But did you see a bit later when he caved in the center of the line and blew up a third down running play for a loss, even if he didn’t make the tackle. He did make the play.

In the second half, I LOVED watching Chris Baker. Two tacles for a loss and bull rush sack from a nose tackle? That is good play at any level. I think we have a solid player there.

I too thought Bly got a bad rap, mainly because of Slowik’s schemes. It’s hard to play well when you have no safety support and you’re always in a prevent defense.

He was like way expensive…and cutting him was a super big hit on the cap…but now its done…and…like…we drafted Smith and he is gonna be way good…totally better than Bly…and is gonna play lots longer.

Sooooo…short term hit on salary cap…gets rid of a player who might still be able to play in Denver or maybe not…and makes room for Smith…little bit of good and bad….just sayin’

On the first drive when he went 5 for 5 before the Int. I think 4-7 sells him a little short.

I messed up and didn’t record the first few plays, so I am missing his first three throws, but I have already broke downt he tape on everything else.

Writing the post up as we speak….

My point was that his completion rate overall was good, and his actual throwing mechanics were sound. His decision making wasn’t the best (hence the “happy feet”), but that can be attributed to being a new guy in a new system with a new coach and coordinator.

Some of the completions weren’t accurate, and some of the misses weren’t flubs either. Overall, (and yes, 3 INTs is terrible), all I looked at (and I wrote so before the game with the other staff) was fundamentals. I knew the INTs would come, and I knew that he would likely be a little sloppy. But the things I went into the game wanting to see looked promising to me.

Orton had the first team O-line, all the time in the world, and Simms actually threw one more pass than Orton did.

If he doesn’t show up and have a big game next week I don’t know if he’ll last till week one.

its a counter draw. What’s interesting is that its a key piece of the zone-read option that the Gators run. I don’t expect Orton to make like Tim Tebow, but I wonder if that is just a piece of something new McD has up his sleeve.

Of the two, I would be more likely to want Jordan to stay since he knows the NE system. And, he is still a good goal-line back.

…but I think those (good) weak side runs were down hill (including one where he cut the weakside right away, took two or three steps, then cut north for daylight). In the plays I’m refering to, the RB was still next to the QB about the time the defense was reaching him. They were very slow to take shape.

Forgot to mention another positive – Chris Baker!

I kept wondering why Barrett lined up at ILB during training camp; maybe he’s better suited to that

The second Simms TD looked every bit like the type of pass you and many other Orton critics would expect from Orton. Off target, and floating. I agree that Simm’s did a good job of avoiding pressure and getting a pass off, but I haven’t seen any evidence that says Orton is incapable of the exact same play, and hopefully better. The only reason I can think of that would say Orton couldn’t have made that play is that Simm’s had been flushed out left, and Orton would have had to turn around to make the throw. However, there is no reason to believe that plays can’t break in the opposite direction.

I’m not trying to say Orton had a great night, three picks are obviously unacceptable. However, he didn’t have 16 terrible throws, he had 4-5. Those 4-5 bad throws and the problems that led to them (happy feet, forcing throws, staring down receivers) need to be worked on. If we are lucky he can turn 3-4 of those into smart plays with effective practice reps, if not, then we are in trouble.

Oh yeah, and playing safe can be playing to win, remember Plummer in ’05?

9 for 16 is a good percentage. YPA doesn’t mean much to me if the QB isn’t being asked to stretch the field (which Orton wasn’t).

As for the pass, sure, I wouldn’t expect Orton to make it. But frankly, I wouldn’t expect Simms to make it either. Indeed, I wouldn’t expect ANY QB to make that throw. It was an incredible throw, and I doubt SImms would make it most of the time (and that doesn’t take anything away from him). The effort was extraordinary. (Scooping the ball up was just icing on the cake).

was actually just a safe throw. The receiver had a big cushion so the main thing was not to try to lead him perfectly and — oops — overthrow it. And the ball still got there before the defender did. McKinley’s drop was due to him letting the ball get into his chest rather than reaching out for it. He should take lessons from Hillis, who always plucks the ball out of the air. But getting upset doesn’t mean it won’t happen again. The subtext of getting publicly upset is, “That’s not normal for me.” It’s a face-saving gesture. Hopefully it isn’t normal for him, but only time will tell.

Some folks think MHR is one monolithic thought. It isn’t. Folks can disagree and do it with respect. When I say I am going to give our new coach a chance, some folks call me a homer. If I write that I think our #1 receiver acts like a thug, I’m a hater. The truth is, I think most of our member are balanced, and have several different opinions. In the case of Guru and I, we both have valid things to say and we both have a little knowledge of the game.

Really, I’m only highlighting the difference for the sake of a very few people who don’t believe it. I think you (and the vast majority of folks) already get it.

The players are nothing without coaching. Our “questionable” defensive front seemed to play pretty good all night long. Bet 30 bucks they wouldn’t have done nearly as well without Nolan’s help.

What exactly did you see that led you to believe the coaching staff doesn’t have a clue?

That has got to be about 180 degrees out of whack as you can get.

Bet he is about 8 years old and has never played a down of football in his life. That statement is completely moronic!

Based on what? What did you see from the coaches that made you think this? You may have a point, but you need to give us something to go on.

Hey, go easy on the guy. He is saying what he sees. We all have different perspectives and see things differently.

Personally, I would like to point out that this is a first year coach, in a vastly re-structured team, with a brand new playbook on both sides, and most of all…

It was the first preseason game!

So Billy, go easy on the coaching staff, I imagine they aren’t out to win at all costs. they need some questions answered, and McDaniels got a ton of info from this game.

If he was trying to win at all costs, he would have kicked the extra point…

It will work with great variance based on the type of team it is run against and the nature of the defensive players.

The play needs to be run to get some film, and to get the offense used to the play.

It will be worth running, just at certain times against certain teams. Chances are, there is a set of plays that look similar that will be run as setup plays, or this is the setup play…

From a defense perspective, I am more critical of offensive plays that don’t work than I should be. I see the mistakes from the perspective of the defense, and I don’t see the potential for the play as much as I would if I had an offensive background.

But I agree on both plays. From my (biased) context, I think that plays that involve a stop or pause allows a smart and fast defense to take advantage. My defenses played very well against draws and delays, as well as slow reverses. (Of course, there was a trade off and there were other things we weren’t built to stop). SF could not pressure our QBs quickly, and our runs were good. However, plenty of the slow developing run plays got stuffed by SF, so I thought those plays were bad to go back to.

And yes, I don’t care for the NE screen plays. But in fairness, that’s a personal bias. When NE runs them, they work very well.

I was thinking about the front seven when I wrote that. There will always be an atrocious missed tackle (or two or three) in a game. I just don’t want RBs breaking through the front seven like melted butter because of missed tackles (especialy multiple missed tackles). I didn’t see anything like last year in this game. We had a pretty good defense on the field (both strings), and I felt much better about what I saw.

(I wrote last year that Jack hasn’tshown me a MF thing. After his miss last night, I though we should just drop “Jack Williams” and keep the “MF”) lol

But, it was an anomaly. I saw more solid tackling last night than I did in several games last year.

what you mean that Orton couldn’t win with a Super Bowl team. He quarterbacked the team to the playoffs as a rookie and was unceremoniously dumped for the playoffs for Grossman, which I never understood because Grossman stunk up the place after that.

Regarding your claim that Orton could not “outright win” the position from Grossman, I assume you were overseas all last year? Orton not only “outright win” the position from Grossman in 2008, but he took back the job from Grossman in the 9th game last year after missing the 8th one with a high ankle sprain and kept it the rest of the year. In other words, Orton was better injured than Grossman was healthy.

Bly stank before he got to Denver, even though he was second only to Bailey in INTS and was a pro bowler. Wow.

Orton stank before he got here, even with a much better winning record than Cutler (and with worse weapons).

Can’t read defenses – Orton has a better record of INTs versus Cutler, and TDs to INTs. He reads defenses very well. What he doesn’t do is come into a brand new system and learn it overnight.

I have a hard time understanding where you’re coming from on this. There’s plenty of negative things to say about Orton, Bly, and McDaniels that would make sense. But you’re picking things that play to their positives, and the numbers back this.

He LOVES Orton, and thinks he’s the best ever! (I would think Brees, whom I met a few times, would be considered better. But there you go).

At this point, I’m not overly impressed with any LB. Larsen had a few really good plays. I recall one where he blasted right up the gut untouched and got the quarterback just a split second after the QB threw the ball away. That’s the kind of pressure I love to see on a quarterback. If our DT’s and NT can’t get there, I see a guy like Larsen getting in there and creating hell in the back field. Whether or not he makes a big play, his assaulting presence alone will shake a bad play almost every time.

Larson looked good too.

I was impressed by both strings.

by playing one position for awhile. He’s moved every year since his rookie year. His rookie year he vied for the DROY, as I recall. Let’s see him rock a position and a DC for more than one season. Then we’ll know if he’s the guy we once knew.

as soon as Dawkins comes back. I agree with you, the coverage of TE’s was pretty upsetting, especially when they are making throws up the gut on us.

If Dawkins is who I think he is, I don’t see any team being dumb enough to try that once he’s here. He’s mean and he’ll make you pay for trying to insult us by getting a short to medium pass up the middle.

I think the TE coverage will improve when Reid or someone else takes the LOLB spot. I got the impression that Haggen got it to motivate other players that McDaniels said were loafing.

He just needs to work on his east to west dancing. I think he needs to commit more after one or two jukes. If he can get through that first little bull rush of defenders, there’s nothing stopping him. He’s GAME fast.

It really sucks to say that, because I think he’s got some talent and obvious knowledge of the offensive system. However, once Marshall comes back, I don’t know if he’ll be as important. I see him dropping off to 4th or 5th once we get B Marsh back.

No doubt he’s gotta get some reps out there too. I really can’t wait to see how he does.

 in games 3 and 4 of pre-season (maybe a series next week). As a few people pointed out here in previous thread it’s an unusual pre-season because you have your top two QBs both new to the team and the system, and a new coaching staff that needs to both evaluate them and give them time to learn a relatively complicated new system. Since Orton and Simms are 1-2 they need to get a lot more playing time in pre-season than they normally would due to being new to the staff and vice versa. Once the coaches are more satisfied with the game action they’ve received then you’ll see Tom get some more chances.

Did anyone see his haircut after the game? I had no idea he was bald on the top with hair around the back. He should just shave the whole thing.

Ya do what you can!

Let me know how the recipie turns out.

PosterNutbag, I saw that when the 2nd teamers were playing but not the 1st team.

As others have noticed, we seemed to play a lot of 5-2. If a runner gets through the line then they inevitably get a good gain.

ooops…that was supposed to say ‘mixed bag’, not ‘mixed bad’. I hate you Sigmund Freud! ;-)

looked really good to me, too. (As part of that improved special teams) I honestly think the Broncos will be in good shape with either of them.

The second was really “eh”, but he was doing pretty good all night long. Also both of our punters were doing some really good work out there.

Swift had one reception and looked good for that catch.

http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter?game_id=54731&displayPage=tab_gamecenter&season=2009&week=PRE1

You can watch four minutes of highlights at the NFL Network link above.

The coaches aren’t evaluating themselves. Their playcalling is designed to test players and plays, not to have winning drives down the field (though you hope it happens). Denver used some odd run plays, and went to the same well with some pass schemes (which aided the opposing DBs) becuase they wanted to evaluate the team more than winning a game.

Given that (the coaches not coaching to win but to evaluate), it is hard to judge the coaching throughout the pre-season.

Just my opinion. I didn’t have a strong feeling one way or the other.

First, please read this link (from whence most of my disagreement would be made clear). Bly is not only a multiple year pro-bowler, not only the second highest INT garnering player behind Bailey, but also played a lot of run support (wide) in the cover 2 in Detroit without problems. He also came up and did well in run support against us with SF. His only bad year was with Denver (and Bailey didn’t look so hot either). I provided the reasons (as I saw them), but I could be wrong. Please read the link, and tell me where you think I got it wrong. I’m always willing to learn something new.

: )